


Initiative

by manic_intent



Category: Ant-Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Intercrural Sex, M/M, That post movie 2 AU where the Snap never happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 03:37:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20269375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “Hello again,” Scott said, as cheerfully as he could.Standing by the holographic deck in the middle of the shiny new Situation Room in the shiny new HQ for ATLAS, Jimmy stared at Scott. “Did you need something else, Mister Lang?”Scott winced. The past year since the Ghost Incident hadn’t changed Agent Jimmy Woo much. Same wary expression, as though Scott was going to cart off the TV if Jimmy turned his back. Jimmy was still looked perfectly folded into his black suit with the neat tie, his collar pressed to sharp edges. “No uh. Just want to say. I’m happy to be here?”





	Initiative

**Author's Note:**

> For Tiphaine, who asked for Scott/Jimmy, Ant Man. AU: No Thanos, no blip.

“Hello again,” Scott said, as cheerfully as he could. 

Standing by the holographic deck in the middle of the shiny new Situation Room in the shiny new HQ for ATLAS, Jimmy stared at Scott. “Did you need something else, Mister Lang?” 

Scott winced. The past year since the Ghost Incident hadn’t changed Agent Jimmy Woo much. Same wary expression, as though Scott was going to cart off the TV if Jimmy turned his back. Jimmy was still looked perfectly folded into his black suit with the neat tie, his collar pressed to sharp edges. “No, uh. Just want to say. I’m happy to be here?” 

Jimmy studied Scott with an unreadable expression. “Why wouldn’t you be? You’re one of only a few powered individuals in San Francisco, and you’ve worked with the Avengers before. As long as you have access to the Ant Man suit, you have a right to be part of ATLAS.” 

“That sounds kinda depressingly like something the higher-ups told you to regurgitate to me,” Scott said and regretted blurting that out when Jimmy started to frown. 

Stiffly, Jimmy said, “If my presence as the SHIELD contact for ATLAS makes you uncomfortable in any way given our history—”

“No! Oh, uh. Not at all. I mean. I’m glad that you’re here?” That wasn’t a lie. When Fury, who still scared the hell out of Scott, had introduced Jimmy as their handler, Scott had been relieved. Sure, Jimmy was a stickler for detail—but he was fair. Scott’s house arrest could’ve been far worse. 

“You don’t sound certain,” Jimmy said, though he managed a faint smile. “What do you think about ATLAS?”

“This building? It’s cool. Not as big as the Avengers’ place over in New York, but cool.” ATLAS was funded by a coalition of Silicon Valley tech companies, so HQ was full of random automation and over-engineered devices. There was an expensive-looking machine in the rec room whose only purpose appeared to be pressing prepackaged (??) fruit into juice. There were lots of hipster snacks in the kitchen. Great wifi. There was even a resident AI unironically named ORACLE. 

“I meant the team.” 

“Ah, right. Er. Hope’s awesome, I mean. Ghost might be scary at first, but she’s cool now, getting therapy and everything.” Scott shot a furtive look around the room for the tell-tale glimmer that meant Ghost was present. “Silk and Miss Marvel are great. I mean, I don’t know who they are or anything, and I haven’t worked with them before, so that’s just a first impression. And there’s you.” 

Jimmy stared at Scott in silence until Scott started to mumble a cautious retraction. He chuckled. “What about me?” 

“You’re… FBI? SHIELD? FBI-SHIELD? I guess I’m not your first ride _I MEAN_ this isn’t your first ride. Rodeo. I meant rodeo,” Scott said, turning bright red. 

Thankfully, instead of making a joke or something worse, Jimmy opted to gracefully ignore Scott’s major slip of the brain. “That it isn’t,” Jimmy said, bringing up data screens with flicks of his fingers. “Looking forward to working with you, Mister Lang.” 

Scott retreated gratefully, sweating into his shirt. As the door to the Situation Room closed behind him, a voice overhead said, “That was seriously pathetic.” 

“Jesus!” Scott clutched at his chest, sagging against the wall. Attached to the ceiling with her mask pulled over her face, Silk stared down at Scott through the unsettling white eye-pieces in her white and black costume. “Isn’t that room meant to be soundproof?” 

“Soundproof to vanilla humans, sure.” Silk scuttled over the ceiling, giving Scott horrifyingly acute Exorcist flashbacks. “Be seeing you, regular guy.” 

“I’m never going to have kids,” Scott told Hope when he located her in the underground laboratory, tinkering with her Wasp armour. “Oh! Hello, Mrs Pym.”

“I’ve told you to call me Janet, Scott,” Janet said. She’d been hidden behind a lattice of holographic 3D images of strange tubes and weaves. Mother and daughter were both in long-sleeved shirts and jeans, liberally stained with engine grease. 

“Where’s Hank?” Scott asked, looking around the lab. 

“Marinating in self-pity, I’d bet. ‘SHIELD! Those militant corporatists!’” Janet imitated Hank’s gruff bellow. Hope snickered, then cursed as something sparked under her fingertips. “I’ve told him, my decision to go sub-atomic to stop the bomb was just that—_my_ decision. Him blaming everything on SHIELD and Nick Fury is just being childish.” 

“Bet he took that well,” Scott said.

“Evidently, since he’s still sulking.” Janet closed down the holograms with a gesture. “Was there something you needed?”

“Could I help with anything?” Scott asked. 

“Don’t you have a day job? Unlike us super-rich people or college students,” Hope said. 

“Which one of that is Ghost?” Scott still didn’t know much about Ghost. She just popped up now and then during Ant Man business, usually in a way that freaked the fuck out of Scott. 

“College student. We’re funding her. Along with Silk and Miss Marvel. Better that way for ATLAS if they don’t have to spend their spare time working on top of their studies,” Hope said, carefully inserting a module with a tweezer. “Say hi to Luis for me, OK?” 

Dismissed, Scott slunk guiltily outside the ATLAS building, where his phone promptly recovered reception. There were no calls or texts from Luis, which was a little weird. He called in to the office. “Everything OK?” Scott asked. 

Luis whooped. “Wow! Meeting over already? Wait, why are you asking me whether everything is OK? Is there an alien invasion or a reality breach or something near me is that why you’re asking? Don’t worry. I am checking the window right now. Dave and Kurt are checking too. We don’t see a single thing. It is all OK. Maybe the problem is invisible. In which case, it is not OK.” 

“No, no. Things are fine. It was just a meet-and-greet — no big. I just called to check in on the office,” Scott said. 

“Everything’s fine. Running great. Meeting with Mr Kawasaki went good. We’re signing contracts maybe next week for a security audit.” Luis chattered on as Scott started to walk around the oval HQ, the Ant Man boots crunching over gravel. The suit was hot in the warm afternoon even with the inbuilt coolant tech, and Scott was starting to regret having worn it. 

Hope hadn’t bothered dressing up. _Everyone knows who I am_, she’d said. It was part of the problem. Everyone knew who everyone else in ATLAS was, or could guess. Scott? Without his suit, Scott was just a vanilla human. Which didn’t make him feel insignificant. Cassie had become politically active after taking part in the climate change protests in her high school. Lecturing Scott now and then about where he was going wrong was part of her currently being ‘woke’, or whatever the kids were calling it. It was important, Cassie had told Scott, for him to ‘use his privilege’ as an ‘ally’. 

“The hell does that even mean?” Scott said out loud as he hung up, just as something hit him in the back and sent him rolling across the grass. 

“Sorry! Ohmigosh sorry!” 

Scott winced as he rolled onto his back. Miss Marvel’s blue-masked face peered anxiously down at him, her thick dark hair framing her small brown face. “Ouch,” Scott said. 

“I didn’t mean to hit you! Sorry. I was embiggening my foot and didn’t see you. Are you OK?” 

“I’m fine,” Scott lied, sitting up and rubbing his back. Pain jolted up his spine. Miss Marvel helped Scott limp over to the shade, at which point Ghost faded into view at his elbow. 

Scott was still squeaking and flailing when Jimmy materialised. “Is something wrong?” Jimmy asked, looking keenly between them. 

“Sorry!” Miss Marvel said, upset. 

“The normie got kicked by accident and probably sprained his back,” Ghost said, unmerciful as always. She gently grasped Miss Marvel’s wrist. “C’mon. We’ll spar somewhere else. Out of range.”

“It’s OK,” Scott said weakly, but Ghost and Miss Marvel sped off. Scott leaned against the wall, gingerly rubbing his back.

“A sprain?” Jimmy asked.

“Seriously, it’s OK. I’m fine.” Scott took a step forward and grimaced as his body forced him into an awkward hop. He would’ve pitched forward onto his face if Jimmy hadn’t caught him by the elbow. 

“We could have ORACLE run a health diagnostic.” 

“No. Let’s just not. I’ll head home, put some ice on it like an old man, and watch Netflix.” 

“How did you get here?” 

“Ah, right.” Scott had hitched a ride from the Pyms, who didn’t look like they were going to head back home anytime soon. “Uh, I’ll call an Uber.” 

“This is a secure facility, Mister Lang. No Uber.” Jimmy’s lips twitched faintly. “I’ll drive you. Wait here.” 

“No, it’s really…” Scott trailed off as Jimmy walked away briskly. He rested his forehead against the warm concrete wall and swallowed a sigh. Things were going so well. As usual.

#

Cassie was on her way out of the house with a couple of friends, and she gave Jimmy an incredulous look when they pulled up at the sidewalk. She shot Scott a pointed stare before squeezing into her tiny secondhand Mazda and chugging off. Jimmy gracefully acted as though he hadn’t seen anything as he helped Scott to the door, then to the couch.

“Is there ice in your ‘fridge?” Jimmy asked. 

“Think so, yes.” Scott felt along his back gingerly. “There’s also a first-aid box under the sink.” 

Jimmy clunked around Scott’s kitchen and returned with an ice pack and a first-aid box, which he left within reach. “Sure you’re all right?” he asked. 

“Yeah. Sure. Doing great. Just getting old, huh?” Scott regretted the joke once it left his mouth. As though Jimmy needed reminding how bad a fit Scott was for the team. The one mediocre guy in a team full of scarily competent women. If this were a Hollywood movie, that would probably make him the leader. As it was, Ghost was voted in as the leader, given her existing black ops experience. “Tea? Coffee?” 

“I should be getting back.” Jimmy didn’t immediately bolt for the door, though. He looked around the ancient house, with the pockmarked walls and the dodgy floorboards that Scott always meant to fix, the fading rugs and dinged up couches. Cassie’s ginger cat, Rakshasa, glared balefully at them from the stairs and darted back to the upper floor when Jimmy looked at her. Jimmy’s stern expression softened. “I love cats. What’s its name?” 

“Rakshasa. Cassie just learned about D&D when we adopted her.” Scott was proud of that. He’d been hoping to join Cassie’s group, but Cassie had told that would be Too Weird since everyone was from her college class, and besides, the party had six people already, so they were full. 

“D&D?” 

“Dungeons and Dragons?” At Jimmy’s blank expression, Scott let out a startled laugh. “You can’t not know what that is. Sit down, c’mon. I’ll show you.” 

Cassie came home to find Jimmy and Scott crouched against the coffee table with Luis and the others on Skype via Scott’s laptop. Cassie’s copy of the Player’s Handbook was open on Jimmy’s lap, and freshly-scrawled character sheets were spread on the table. “—the grey goblin’s gonna shoot at Ezekiel, oh hi Cassie hope you had a good day, that’s—” Luis rolled the dice in front of his makeshift DM screen of folders, “—a 19 to hit.” 

“Hits,” Jimmy said, so intent on the character sheet that he only offered Cassie a polite wave. 

“You guys are really playing D&D with the not-so-secret agent,” Cassie said, though she leaned over the back of the couch with her elbows, peeking at Jimmy’s character sheet. “A cleric? Really? Isn’t that a hard class for a total noob?” 

“Rude. Jimmy’s a youth pastor anyway; he has a natural affinity for the class,” Scott said as Luis rolled for damage. “How did you know he’s a newbie?” 

“It’s true,” Jimmy said, even as Cassie said, “That’s your handwriting on his character sheet, Dad.” 

“4 damage to Ezekiel,” Luis said. 

“Ouch,” Cassie said as Jimmy solemnly wrote down a neat ‘-4’ in pencil next to his character’s health. “Being level 1 sucks. Like, the sudden bump you get at level 2 is crazy. You guys playing the starter campaign?”

“Well, just for a bit,” Scott said, as Luis rolled to hit for the rest of the goblin archers. “Wanna join?” 

“What’s everyone else?” Cassie asked.

“I’m a ranger, Dave’s a sorcerer, and Kurt’s a bard,” Scott said. 

“…Okay, y’all need to be saved from yourselves. Count me in,” Cassie said and squeezed in next to Scott on the couch as she tied her mousy brown hair into a ponytail. Jimmy scooted over to make room without looking up, shrugging off his jacket and loosening his tie. 

“Ooh, bringing out the big guns now, eh?” Scott said, grinning at them both. Cassie stuck out her tongue at him as she brought up an app on her phone. Scott stared at it. “Really? An app?”

“Yeah, why?” Cassie asked. 

Scott made a show of shaking his head. “Young lady, in my day—”

“Please don’t, Dad. Luis, I’ve got a pre-rolled level 1 dwarf paladin, I’ll email you the sheet.” Cassie tapped at her phone screen. 

“Dwarf pallie? By Cthulhu, I’ve raised a power gamer. What have I done,” Scott said, with arch horror. 

Cassie grabbed his player sheet. “Someone has to make up for the fact that a weirdo rolled a gnome ranger. Really, Dad? You didn’t even take the deep or forest subrace.”

“Don’t diss my Mark of Scribing gnome’s ability to psychically slide into anyone’s DMs, young lady. And I can ride on the back of my wolf.”

“You only get a companion at level 3,” Cassie shot back. 

Luis pointedly cleared his throat. “Um, it’s Scott’s—er, Russball’s turn.” 

“Your gnome ranger is called _Russball_?” Cassie said, grimacing.

There was a strange sound from Jimmy. Scott looked over quickly just as Jimmy turned away, stifling laughter against his sleeve. “I had a hamster called Russball when I was younger, Sir—” Scott glanced at her screen, “—Aryana Stark the Dwarf Paladin. Wow. Totally original, sweetheart.” 

“Just play,” Dave said, staring intently at the small whiteboard with an inked grid and markers. “Your turn, Scott.”

#

Scott fell asleep on the couch in his costume and woke up blearily in the morning to Cassie removing his boots and helmet. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

Cassie only gave him a worried look as she fetched him coffee. She looked like she’d only just woken up herself, with her sleep-messed hair and rumpled PJs. “Long night?” she said as she set the steaming mug down. 

“Yeah.” Scott yawned, gratefully grabbing the cup as he sat up. Angar’s hideout had turned out to be an ambush—no one on the team had ended up seriously hurt, but Ghost had broken one of the hired goons’ arms. Cassie fed Rakshasa and scrambled back upstairs as Scott drank coffee and became marginally more human. “Where’re you headed?” he asked when Cassie flew back down the stairs in jeans and a blouse, pulling a sling bag over her chest. 

“Class. Life. SSCC stuff. Bye Dad,” Cassie said and breezed out of the door. Scott finished the coffee and crawled upstairs to have a shower and change. He was yawning when he got to the office, pouring himself behind his desk as Kurt wordlessly passed him a second cup of coffee. 

An hour into checking his emails, Scott’s phone vibrated against his thigh. It was Jimmy. 

**Jimmy**: Good morning. 

Scott grinned. Jimmy and his perfect texting punctuation. 

**Scott**: hey  
**Scott**: wassup  
**Jimmy**: Nothing. Just checking in.  
**Scott**: well if u guys nd me call  
**Scott**: or if u wanna hv lunch or sthin ;) 

Jimmy went quiet. Scott finished answering emails and was proofing one of Luis’ plans when his phone vibrated again.

**Jimmy**: Sure.  
**Jimmy**: When? 

Scott was so surprised that he stared blankly at his phone. Well. This didn’t have to be weird. 

**Scott**: uh  
**Scott**: today  
**Scott**: i mean if ur free  
**Scott**: haha obv i mean u hv to b free

Jesus. Scott rubbed his hand slowly over his face. 

**Jimmy**: Today should be fine. I’ll pick you up from your office. 12pm?  
**Scott**: sure  
**Scott**: its a date ;)

Scott regretted the message instantly. He would’ve swallowed his phone if he could take it back. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to phase Jimmy.

**Jimmy**: See you then. 

Scott looked up to Luis and the others staring worriedly at him from their desks. “What?” Scott asked. 

“ATLAS business?” Luis asked. “You can go if you want. We can cover you.”

“Um, no? Just lunch,” Scott said.

“You’re smiling weirdly,” Kurt said. 

“A date? Wow. Who’s the lucky person? You haven’t dated since forever. Like, I thought you’d sworn off dating forever. After that incident with the tennis ball and the orange juice,” Dave said. 

Scott raised a finger. “Firstly, we are not mentioning that incident ever again. Secondly, no, it’s not a date. I’m just going for lunch with Jimmy. Agent Woo,” Scott clarified when everyone looked blank. 

“Him? You dating the popo? Aww man. Did we teach you nothing, Scott? Nothing? You don’t date the feds. The fuzz. The cops. It starts off really cute at first like wow this guy has a steady job and really knows his stuff, and then _wham_ he’s probably looking you up on a cop computer and he knows everything you’ve ever done and he’s talking to the other fed watching you from your laptop,” Luis said.

“We played D&D with him,” Scott said, taken aback by Luis’ unblinking stare. 

“That’s just D&D,” Luis said. Dave and Kurt nodded vigorously. “Vin Diesel once played D&D with a cop. Was Vin Diesel dating this cop? I don’t think so. Be like Vin Diesel. Except without getting into weird feuds with the Rock. Always be friends with the Rock. Hell, if you want to date the Rock, more power to you, I mean, everyone wants to date the Rock.” 

“It’s not like that.” Scott hunched down behind his laptop. “He probably just wants to discuss something about ATLAS.”

#

After three lunch meetings, Scott had to admit that it was entirely like that. He didn’t talk business at all with Jimmy after the awkward first lunch, where Jimmy had run off halfway because something had cropped up. Scott learned that Jimmy had gone to Harvard Law on an Army ROTC, that he’d been recruited into SHIELD eventually and dropped into the FBI while Fury had been gathering funding for ATLAS.

“You probably should make a greater effort to hide your identity,” Jimmy said one afternoon as they walked back toward Scott’s office. 

“Says the super UN spy person,” Scott said. 

Jimmy sniffed. “I take precautions. My parents don’t know what I do—they think I’m in security consulting. You having your suit at home, having your friends and family all aware of what you are—it’s a security risk.” 

“I know. I mean, the last bad guy injected Luis with truth serum to try and find out where I was.” 

“Luis?” Jimmy chuckled. “I’m guessing they got far more than they wanted.” 

“So I heard. Look, you do you. But everyone knowing about The Thing has saved my ass before.” 

“It’s a nice ass,” Jimmy said and smiled as Scott gasped archly.

“Why, Agent Woo. I never.” Scott laughed as Jimmy gave him a sidelong look and pulled him down a quiet adjacent alley. 

“I didn’t want to presume,” Jimmy said, after a couple of glances around them to make sure that they were alone. 

“I do,” Scott said. He leaned in while he still had the nerve, pecking Jimmy on the mouth. Jimmy froze up for only a second. He tucked his fingers into Scott’s hair and kissed him back with a low moan, relaxing as Scott melted against him. Jimmy was a demanding kisser, holding Scott close and licking into his mouth until Scott had forgotten the weird smell in the alley, the sticky heat of the afternoon, the glances from passers-by beyond the alley. Jimmy let out a shaky breath between them as Scott kissed his jaw, his cheek.

Scott’s phone vibrated between them, breaking the spell. Jimmy startled back a step as Scott palmed his phone from his pockets, annoyed at the interruption.

**Cassie**: will b back late  
**Scott**: ok dear  
**Cassie**: ugh dad pls dun be mom  
**Scott**: take care bunny  
**Cassie**: no!! no paxton!!

“Just Cassie,” Scott said, pocketing his phone. 

“Something up?” Jimmy already looked perfectly composed, as though the last ten minutes had never happened. 

“Don’t think so. She joined some student climate change group thing at college, and they’ve been putting up posters and stuff.” Scott was a little vague on this point. He barely remembered his time in college—he’d been drunk or high for most of it and had been more surprised than anyone that he’d passed his Masters. 

“In Stanford?”

“Yeah,” Scott said. He was never going to stop being proud of that. Even if it meant that Cassie was going to be squished by debt that she’d have to spend decades of her life repaying. The Pyms had offered to shoulder it, but Cassie had muttered something about billionaires being a ‘policy problem’, and Scott hadn’t raised it since. She’d come around. 

“Tell her to be careful,” Jimmy said, staring at the street. “Even without what you’re doing, the world’s an increasingly dangerous place.” 

“She’s a young woman. Cassie can take care of herself.”

#

Scott had assumed that Jimmy would get self-conscious if Scott ever tried anything in HQ, which showed him how bad a judge of character he was. “You do realise ORACLE is watching,” Jimmy said, a token protest before he locked the door of the bathroom behind them and pressed Scott into a corner to kiss him.

“I am always observing, Agent Woo,” said ORACLE from the overhead speakers. Not creepy at all. Scott shot the unobtrusive black half-sphere in the corner of the bathroom a dirty look and tugged Jimmy’s tie loose, nuzzling the hollow of his throat. ORACLE fell silent as Scott rubbed himself eagerly against Jimmy, grinding until Jimmy groaned and pushed a thigh between his legs. Scott twisted around in Jimmy’s arms, rubbing his ass against the straining bulge he could feel, gasping as Jimmy set his palms on Scott’s hips and thrust against him. 

“I have a meeting in an hour,” Jimmy complained, his breath hot against the back of Scott’s neck. 

“Uh-huh.” Scott braced his palms against the smooth walls and ground back against Jimmy, setting up an urgent rhythm. 

“Scott, we’re not going to—did you even bring a change of clothes?” 

“The Ant Man suit?”

“That doesn’t count,” Jimmy said, horrified, because of _course_ his cute SHIELD boyfriend/lover was going to have a conniption over something like this. Scott started to giggle, then laugh as Jimmy grumbled something against his neck in Mandarin. 

“What, you want me to strip down in here? I mean, sure, whatever you want, officer.” 

“Please don’t with the RP,” Jimmy said, except he said ‘RP’ in carefully distinct letters, as though reciting the abbreviation for the first time. 

Scott pressed his cheek to the wall as mirth shook through him, joyous and warm. Jimmy muttered something again and unbuckled Scott’s belt, unzipping his pants. His hand was slick with spit as he drew Scott out and stroked him in urgent tugs, panting against Scott’s cheek. Scott bowed his head and watched. That was Jimmy’s gun hand around his cock; Jimmy’s even breathing shaking into soft gasps against his back, Jimmy’s expensive cologne taking on the faint hint of sweat. Scott moaned Jimmy’s name, and Jimmy grunted as he thrust against Scott’s ass. Knuckles brushed against Scott’s thigh as Jimmy awkwardly managed his clothes, pushing their pants and underwear to their knees.

“Your knees,” Jimmy whispered. Scott obligingly squeezed his thighs together, moaning as Jimmy pushed the spit-slick length of his cock into the tight fit between Scott’s legs. 

The wet head of Jimmy’s cock bumped deliciously against the back of Scott’s balls, and Scott whined as he rolled his hips, eager for more. Jimmy held him still, tucking his free arm around Scott’s waist as he timed his thrusts with the tight fist he made at the base of Scott’s cock, the steady pull up to the tip that sung pleasure through Scott’s blood, that folded a desperate buzzing lust under his skin. Scott whimpered his pleas into the wall, scratching at the tile. Jimmy gave him no quarter, pressing kisses over his throat and shoulder as he hauled Scott to his rhythm, his will. 

“You’re beautiful,” Jimmy said against the back of Scott’s throat. “Look at you, Scott. You’re so beautiful.” Scott drank the hushed awe of Jimmy’s words down, ate his unashamed praise, breathed in the tender tangible weight of his desire. 

It had been so long since Scott had felt this wanted. The air felt thin in Scott’s lungs as he moaned. Jimmy chuckled and whispered something Scott couldn’t catch, thrusting harder. He squeezed Scott back against him, and somehow that tipped Scott right over, yelping as his cock twitched in Jimmy’s grip and drew a mess over Jimmy’s fingers and the wall. Jimmy rumbled against his spine, gasping something garbled as he thrust hard between Scott’s thighs. The wet sounds were loud and obscene in the bathroom. Scott started to giggle helplessly as Jimmy shivered and caught his spend as best he could in his palm, slumping against Scott.

“What’s so funny?” Jimmy asked as he got them cleaned up and watched his hands. 

“I heard you,” Scott said, angling his hip against the bench of sinks and folding his arms. “You took the Lord’s name in vain there at the end, you naughty man.” 

Jimmy’s ears turned pink. “I didn’t.” 

“ORACLE?” 

“Voice analysis indicates that Mister Lang was 86% correct, Agent Woo,” ORACLE said. Scott could get used to an AI having his back. 

“Just… I don’t even…” Jimmy kissed Scott before Scott could smugly proclaim victory. “ORACLE, erase the last fifteen minutes of footage in this bathroom from your databanks, authorisation Woo-alpha-eight-four-twenty.”

“Authorisation acknowledged,” ORACLE said, and went quiet. 

“That was an abuse of power,” Scott said, though he let Jimmy pull him in for another, slower kiss.

#

“Still no visual ID on Angar,” Scott said, perched on his ant close to the hideout. Other ants had already crept in, marching steadily through as they surveyed the rooms. “There’s a—”

“Wow,” Silk’s voice cut in. “You guys on twitter right now? The news?”

“Why would any of us be on twitter during a stakeout of a bad guy’s hideout?” Scott asked. He loved the younger members of ATLAS, he did, but sometimes they made him feel like he should’ve been dead and buried long ago. 

Miss Marvel ignored him. “Oh, man. That’s horrible. It’s like Charlottesville again but downtown—right through the climate action protest? Isn’t that…?” 

“Yeah. Mira and Kathy were going; it’s the one organised by SSCC. Shit… I don’t know if… guys, I’m gonna time out a bit, OK? I need to call a friend,” Cindy said, her voice tight with worry.

“Wait. SSCC.” The abbreviation sounded vaguely familiar to Scott. “What’s that?” 

“Uhm. I guess we were still doing the secret identity thing? But er well, okay, I thought it was maybe obvious, Silk and I, we’re in ATLAS because we’re studying in Stanford, SSCC is the Stanford Students’ Climate Coalition,” Miss Marvel said. 

The world turned into white noise in Scott’s mind. He grew conscious of Jimmy saying “Ant Man? _Ant Man_,” sharply into his ear only after he’d already taken the flying ant back up through the vent, swerving it up to street level.

“I’ve gotta go—sorry, I got to bail, no reception out here,” Scott gasped. 

“You got a kid in SSCC?” Silk asked urgently. “What’s their name? Ping me on a private channel if you want.” 

“Hope and Ghost already know who I am, it’s just you and Miss Marvel and… I trust you guys. My daughter’s name is Cassandra Lang, Cassie for short,” Scott said. The flying ant spun out of the sewer grate, wings whirring as it climbed altitude, speeding to the distant gate. 

“Okay, sec.” Silk went quiet. 

“It’s gonna be OK,” Miss Marvel said, her voice pitched to soothe. 

“I’ll take over here. Just go,” Ghost said. 

“You should all go. Ghost and I will handle Angar,” Hope agreed. “Keep in touch, OK? Let us know if you need anything.” 

A sleek black sports car pulled up next to the gate in a tight snarl of gravel as Scott’s ant winged them through. The window scrolled down—it was Jimmy. “Get in,” Jimmy said. “Miss Marvel, Silk—”

Silk cut in even as Scott got back to his normal size in the front passenger seat. “Oh… fuck. Cassie Lang’s on the way to UCSF in an ambulance. She got hit by the van—she was pushing people out of the way—”

“We’ll get there ourselves, you guys just drive,” Miss Marvel said, her voice wire-tight with panic.

“Breathe,” Jimmy said, his hand curled tight into Scott’s. He gunned the car into a roaring lunge as they tore away from the warehouses.

#

“It’s not that bad,” Cassie protested for the eighth time as Scott sat sunk into the chair beside her hospital bed, shaky with relief. He didn’t even remember having changed out of the Ant Man suit on the drive over. Jimmy had shut them into the ward, stepping outside to talk to the swarm of police outside. Paxton and Maggie were on their way. “I just broke my arm. No concussion, nothing. Clean break too.”

“Let’s not talk about clean breaks or arms or anything,” Scott said in a strangled voice. 

The van that had rammed into the crowd had done so at a reduced speed—there’d been a powered girl in the crowd who’d ‘stopped it with her mind and a ton of sparkles, way cool,’ according to Cassie—at which point students had swarmed the van and performed a citizen’s arrest. Cassie was one of a handful of injured who’d been at the front of the crowd when the van had swerved toward them. 

“I passed out while they were setting it and had the weirdest dream. Probably because I was high on painkillers and stuff. I dreamt I was still a kid and Earth was kinda invaded by a giant purple alien who looked like a wrinkly version of Josh Brolin,” Cassie said dreamily, her eyes still unfocused, “and he decided to play into one of those tired racist Hollywood tropes, you know, where correcting overpopulation is the answer, except he failed at math and destroyed half of _every_ living thing in the whole universe.” 

“Maybe you should have some water and rest,” Scott said, worried. 

“Anyway, you were in the Quantum Realm when he did it by snapping his fingers and using a bunch of magic stones, so Aunt Hope and Janet and Uncle Hank all got disintegrated. So you got stuck there. Five years later a rat runs over the controls of your quantum realm machine access, and that activates the machine—”

“A rat activated the Pym Engine?” Scott interrupted, amazed at where this detailed drug-induced dream was going. “The console has three different biometric failsafes. The entire machine cost half a billion dollars. We’re talking a normal rat?” 

“—and you get spit out like, five years into the future, except in the Quantum Realm only an hour had passed—”

“Wait, what? I’d have to be moving at greater than the speed of light for something like that.” 

“—so you find Captain America and the other remaining Avengers,” Cassie forged on, “and tell them that it’s possible to go back in time through the Quantum Realm to get the magic stones from their pre-Thanos timelines so that you can remake the glove in the present time and undo the Snap.” 

Scott massaged his temple. “That… wow. What kind of drugs are you on? I want some of that. I don’t even. Assuming that time travel was even possible without having to go faster than the speed of light, what even would be the point of returning to the present? Wouldn’t just removing one magic stone be enough to change the future? Would there even be a ‘same’ future to return to?” 

“Tony Stark thought so,” Cassie said, lifting a shoulder into a light shrug. “Anyway everyone returns to the present, which is somehow still the same even though all the stones from the past were removed, because Captain America promises to return them to the point where they were taken after we use them in the future, but anyway Tony Stark’s had a daughter in the five years post Snap, so if he undoes the Snap then she won’t exist, so he tells the Hulk to bring back everyone without changing anything that happened in the five years.” 

“Okay,” Scott said, now thoroughly lost by the dream. “So there was a happy ending?” 

Cassie started to sniffle, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes. “I was alone for five years! Mom and Paxton disintegrated… you were gone… there was a global economic collapse… then when the Snap was undone without undoing the consequences… people fell out of the _sky_. They’d been in planes when they’d been Snapped away and were just returned to the same spot by the Hulk. The people who died on operating tables when surgeons disappeared or in car crashes and stuff stayed dead. Famine spread across the world because suddenly there were twice as many mouths to feed. Civil war everywhere because people had moved into power vacuums, which escalated the refugee crisis, and tons of people were newly homeless, and. It was horrible. All horrible.” 

“There, there,” Scott said, patting Cassie’s back gently. “That’s a really uh, detailed inventory of consequences. Maybe you should write a book. Besides, I’ve met Tony and Bruce; they wouldn’t do anything that reckless.”

“Also Captain America went away to the past and stayed there when he returned the stones,” Cassie mumbled. 

“Wouldn’t that defeat the whole purpose of not changing the timeline? Nevermind. It was all just a bad drug trip or something, think about it that way. Hey, maybe you could come with me to the next ATLAS meeting,” Scott said, casting around desperately for a way to cheer Cassie up. “Silk and Miss Marvel are around your age.” 

Cassie perked up. “Wow, really? They are awesome… wait, aren’t you the only guy on the team?” 

“The token guy, yes.” Hope liked to joke about that now and then. “It’s kinda like how Black Widow was the token woman for a while in the Avengers so, on the West Coast we went the other way.” 

Cassie smirked. “You’d think they’d have picked someone more, y’know, as the token guy.” 

“More what? More handsome? OK, maybe I’d give you that. More athletic? OK, sure. Smarter? Fine. But I challenge you to find anyone else for ATLAS who’s as good at UNO as I am,” Scott said, winking. Cassie laughed, and they were happily trading stories as Jimmy let himself back into the room. 

“No deaths or major injuries. There was a student with TK powers in the crowd who managed to slow the van down. Lone wolf attack from the usual—angry, radicalised white male,” Jimmy said. He looked tired but forced a wan smile. “How are you feeling, Cassie?” 

“I’ll like to be discharged soon if possible,” Cassie said in a rush. “I don’t have insurance.” 

“Seriously, don’t worry about that,” Scott said, patting Cassie’s shoulder. “You just concentrate on getting better.” 

“I guess.” Cassie looked over at Jimmy. “Thanks for letting me know about the others.” 

“It’s a small thing,” Jimmy said. He exhaled slowly. “I wish… well. Things like this. The system we’ve got in place—we’ve got people working full-time monitoring and IDing threats—but things get through. I’m sorry.” 

“At least people jumped on him quick,” Cassie said. She paled. “Did he have guns?” 

Jimmy nodded grimly. “AR-15, pistols. They were zipped up in a duffel bag. The zip stuck. That’s why he—” Jimmy coughed, stopping himself even as ice crept up Scott’s spine. Had it just been that? Sheer luck? “Anyway. I’ll speak to the hospital about getting you discharged.” 

“Thanks,” Scott said.

“See you at the next D&D sesh,” Cassie called after Jimmy’s back as he turned to the door. He gave her a startled look but let himself out. “What?” Cassie said to Scott. 

“You complained for days about that session,” Scott said. 

“Because you and Kurt aren’t capable of making rational decisions. It had nothing to do with Jimmy,” Cassie said loftily. “I like Jimmy.” 

“What happened to the evils of the police state?” 

“He isn’t a cop.” Cassie hesitated. “Sort of. Kind of?” 

“All right, that’s enough drugs for you, young lady,” Scott said. He hugged Cassie to him, hiding his relief and fear in her hair.

#

“You’re all level three now. Yay,” Luis said, peering at all of them behind the Dungeon Master screen at the end of Scott’s dinner table.

“All right!” Cassie punched the air. 

“Aren’t you like, level 50 in your other game?” Scott said, amused. 

Cassie stuck her tongue out at him. “Ten. Levelling up never gets old, Dad.” 

“Who’s rolling for health?” Luis asked. 

“No,” Jimmy said when Scott looked at him.

“Aww, c’mon. The rest of us are,” Scott wheedled. He squeezed Jimmy’s hand under the table. 

“I don’t like risks,” Jimmy said.

“Says the super-secret agent in charge of a super-secret team,” Scott murmured, just softly for Jimmy to pick up. Jimmy sniffed. 

“Just this time,” Cassie said, with an encouraging grin. “You’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Jimmy said, melting under her stare. He squeezed Scott’s hand back, his fingers warm in Scott’s grasp. “Just this time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Refs:  
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question  
https://screenrant.com/avengers-endgame-ending-implications-bad-thanos-snap/  
https://comicbook.com/marvel/2019/04/24/avengers-endgame-quantum-realm-time-travel/  
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a28483247/is-it-possible-to-stop-a-mass-shooting-before-it-happens/  
\--  
twitter: @manic_intent  
on my writing process, prompt policy etc: manic-intent.tumblr.com


End file.
